William H. Macy Delivers Emmy Remarks on Jones and Carrey

William H. Macy used an early May emmy-linked conversation on the We Might Be Drunk podcast to put public labels on two actors’ reputations. He said Tommy Lee Jones was “rough” and added that he had heard Jim Carrey can be “really tough.”

Jones and Carrey

Mark Normand asked Macy, “What actors do you really hate?” and Macy answered with a direct shot at the industry’s softer edges. “He was rough. He’s a rough guy. Well, I’m not letting out any secrets,” Macy said about Jones, who starred with him in The Client in 1994.

On Carrey, Macy drew a line between experience and reputation: “I did not act with him, but I’ve just heard that he can be really tough.” That distinction matters because he was not claiming a first-hand set experience there, only passing along what he had heard.

Hollywood behavior

Macy widened the point beyond those two names. “You know, there are a lot of actors out there… who make life miserable for a lot of people, and they don’t get busted for it. It p***** me off,” he said, turning the podcast into a public complaint about conduct that usually stays in closed rooms and private calls.

The comments carry more weight because Macy is not speaking as an outsider gossiping from the sidelines. He worked with Jones in 1994 and has described deep professional ties to Philip Seymour Hoffman and David Mamet, which gives his remarks the feel of someone talking from inside the business rather than reacting to headlines.

Macy and Mamet

Macy also used the appearance to revisit the teacher who shaped his craft. “He was my teacher. I went to a little school in Vermont called Goddard College, and Dave was there. He just graduated. He came back as a teaching fellow… He taught me everything I know,” Macy said of David Mamet.

He added that he and Mamet later created the Practical Aesthetics acting technique, a reminder that this was not only a name-check session but a look at the pipeline that fed his own career. For viewers and listeners, the value is in the contrast: Macy praised the people who built his work and put pressure on the ones he thinks made the job harder.

That is the useful takeaway from the podcast: Macy was not trading in vague Hollywood cynicism. He named names, separated firsthand experience from hearsay, and put one of the industry’s oldest private complaints into the open.